Maria Bustillos

I have never read Steve Harvey’s very popular man-bagging Act Like a Lady guide, although of course I had heard of it before reading Act Like a Gentleman. Anyone can correct me if I am wrong, but my general impression was that Act Like a Lady fit comfortably into one of the two existing basic slots for man-catching how-tos: slot one, be the “saintly nurse,” as soft and warm as undercooked bread; slot two, be the “kitten-mit-ein-vhip” (Mr. Harvey’s book falling into the latter show more category).

I am sure there is a great deal of utility in this sort of advice, in some respects. The pure angel and the befanged rifle-woman have proven their enduring appeal over the course of human history, of course, but more than that: if one takes these suggestions with a little salt, pretty much anyone can benefit from “remember to be nice, it means a lot to people, especially your nearest and dearest” and “but have a spine, liebchen.” The thing is – it is hard to get people interested in or excited about moderating their behavior to a pleasing balance of yielding and firm, nor is it possible to lay out a road map for precisely how to strike this middle ground, as it varies from human to human and relationship to relationship, and minute to minute.

And so the advice we receive, it seems, gravitates naturally to the high-concept extremes. Be Silly Putty! No, be a hormonal bitch! (The long, painted fingernails are for amputating a man’s procreative equipment, and the purse is for keeping one’s spoils tucked away safely. Is he going to leave you, just walk away from it all, when “it all” includes some Very Important Anatomy of his sitting in that scented little zippered compartment of yours, next to the Kleenex and Tic-Tacs and an emergency tampon? No; no, I think he is not.)

Extremes are, by definition, absurd. Weirdly, though, these guides seem to be taken at uninflected face value. And I suppose there is some utility in that, as well – if one’s broader goal is simply to secure a tactical end, and one doesn’t mind play-acting and doing nothing but grim, mechanistic upkeep (either on oneself or one’s partner) for the duration. But, you see – since the “tactical end” that pretty much any extremist guide assigns to Gender XX is marriage-for-life, “grim, mechanistic upkeep” becomes rather a meaningful liability.

But what about for a short-term goal? Well, it doesn’t seem so bad there. It’s like a costume party or something – it can even be fun! And if we’re going to be all high-concept and absolutist about things, we know that while women always want marriage, men always want the quick score. There’s the short-term goal for which a tactical approach is pragmatic rather than soul-eating! And there’s a ton of results-oriented advice out there on that front as well.

The thing is, the same sad, hopeful psychology that presents us with the nurse/bitch dichotomy (wishing that women would just mold their inscrutable selves into these easily identifiable types) suffers an underlying delusion that it is long past time was imploded: namely, that women are even remotely more complicated than men. Seriously, The Men should have figured this out earlier – having already caught on that all The Women ever want is The Ring. Does that sound like a complicated person? It does not. There you go. And so these get-women-into-bed guides go blah blah blah on and on with gratuitous complexity, when it is all very simple.

There is a magic button they can press. That’s all it takes! It won’t work all the time, but – and I am truly serious now – it will be astonishingly effective for a genuinely depressing percentage of the time.

Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman reveals the magic button, and it is within the reach of literally ANY MAN WITH A PULSE, be he ever so pig-ugly and economically unviable. The fact that the advice here is devastatingly effective on a tactical front is, in many ways, the wickedest thing about this wickedly funny book.

Bustillos asserts that – here we go, I am giving away the goods – all a man really needs to do to inveigle a woman into taking off her clothes is to make a convincing show of being way into her. That’s it. Truly. Men, nix the I-am-so-great posturing, and talk about how great you think she is. Boom, you’re in.

And yes – Bustillos also lays out how you can get right back out whenever and however you please. Aforementioned way-into-ness takes on a hint of uncertainty – due to reasons, of course, having nothing to do with the always-entrancing female in question – that requires either a dissolution for the female’s own sake (so she’s not tied down, ha!) or else time off that can be parlayed trivially into a permanent vanishing act. Sure, “it’s not you, it’s me” is the stuff of tired jokes, but you can still get away with it using the simple three-step expedient: deny, deny, deny. As long as you admit nothing and stick to your story, a vast majority of your abandoned conquests, even if they are suspicious, will never feel quite certain that – well, you did what you did. They may even adore you for it! No, really. An excerpt from the book:

***

Another Secret: women very fervently believe that it is better to have loved and lost, etc. Much, much much better. A grown woman without a string of heartbreaks behind her is reckoned rather a poor specimen (UK “saddo”) among women, particularly among the Romantic Type. Consequently, even though it is not going to “work out,” as the phrase is, if you play your cards right by continuing to refer nostalgically to your glorious past with Patsy—by letting go gracefully, and without rancor or cruelty—there is no reason to suppose there will be any lasting harm on either side. On the contrary, a passionate love affair is self-evidently a success, just by virtue of having happened at all, leaving only a trail of beautiful bittersweet memories in its wake and, with any luck, no lasting sadness.

***

I was, admittedly, a little floored when I saw someone fessing up about all this in print. “Ack,” thinks I, and, “heh heh. Oh dear.” There is an underlying ferocity particular to the “best of all possible worlds” form of satire that does not rely on exaggeration for effect but rather a level gaze at what actually exists. Fortunately – and unlike many satirists – Bustillos takes the disappointments of reality lightly, and the book is not just funny, it is tolerant and warm, with a wealth of judgment-free, take-it-for-what-it-is anecdote and observation. A satiric spin on loving-and-leaving femmes written by a woman might reasonably be expected to turn out to be some sort of stalking-horse in defense of commitment, and yet this is nothing of such. The author even flat-out asserts that lifetime monogamy isn’t for everybody, and probably isn’t even for most bodies, at least until they get a few years and whatever else under their belts.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t read Act Like a Lady, and I am doing a disservice to it, but in my mind, in a way, the real foil to Act Like a Gentleman is more the books written by that veteran of a thousand wars (well, four hundred-odd), also an excellent raconteur with a consistently entertaining turn of phrase and a blisteringly direct view of the world, Giacomo Casanova. Early in The Story of My Life, Casanova relates an anecdote of a dinner-party he attended at the age of thirteen. His intellectual precocity being widely admired by the company, he was asked to translate an ancient Roman couplet: “Discite grammatici cur mascula nomina cunnus/Et cur femineum mentula nomen habet.” (Sans scansion, this is approximately, “Hey, grammar nerds, why is the word for woman-bits masculine and that for man-bits feminine, huh? Riddle me that.”) Rather than translate, frisky young Casanova composed a response in meter: “Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet.” (“Because the slave bears the name of the master.”)

Bustillos admits the reality of this in Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman – and sees beyond it, too. The game is brutal. But it is also amusing. And fun. Sure, there may be a roughly defined winner or loser in any individual skirmish, and this book shows men how to make sure that they’re on the more comfortable side of that equation. But it also shows how while we may all of us be fools – we need none of us be slaves. Hey, even Rousseau, getting all sweaty for an “imperious woman” to “dominate” him – the big question being whether he wanted to be horsewhipped by riding-costumed Madame Civilization or tied with vines and slapped by body-painted Savagina – didn’t want to live that way all the time! You know, just a couple private hours here and there. It’s an important distinction. Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman knows the difference, and the inestimable value and even beauty of each – as well as how absurd, ultimately, all of it is.

(Review originally posted on www.booksquawk.com) show less

On the face of it, this is a book for men about how to get laid. It was written, apparently, as a response to the bestselling Act Like A Lady Think Like A Man by the comedian, Steve Harvey, which is supposed to instruct women in the psychology of men so that they can catch their men and get themselves the Prize (so he says) of marriage. The woman who wrote this book, it seems, thought the scales ought to be balanced on the other side by showing men how to get what they want (so Harvey also show more says) out of the relationship-bargain, viz., sex. Most of the books on this subject have been written by men. As Ms. Bustillos says, if you want to bag a lion, you shouldn't ask the hunter, you should ask the lion. Set a thief to catch a thief, as they say.

And it certainly is an eye-opener in that respect. Here I thought I had a fair idea about how the female mind worked. Pff! I realize now I knew almost nothing. All those Mars and Venus books, the Light My Fires and How To Pick Up Women, these are mere hen-scratchings on the surface of this universally interesting subject. This book really cuts to the heart. And the secret is extraordinarily simple. Not only simple, but available to every man, even those who might previously have thought themselves severely handicapped in this game. Why, I began to ask myself as I read, has nobody thought to write this book until now?

If I'd read this book when I was 16, I suspect, my life would have taken a whole different course. I know that sounds like a preposterously grandiose claim, and this sounds like an infomercial, but I'm actually not kidding!

Even though it pretends to be written for men, and particularly young men with no real clue about how to conduct their side in the battle of the sexes, this book will surely appeal to a much wider audience. Parents, for example, absolutely have to read this book if they want to guard their teenage daughters. Every teenage daughter needs to be armed with a copy before going forth into the dangerous world of courtship or college. Married men, if they want to stay married. And women of every age, particularly those who have found themselves going round and round in an endless circle of broken relationships, can now find out how to escape from that vicious trap.

In fact, you could give this book to almost anybody as a present. OK, maybe not to under-12s. Just about anyone else. Your 88-year-old grandma will find it hilarious.

You would think, given the subject matter, this would be a rather crass book, wouldn't you? On the contrary, I think the eggheads will like it, too. (Not surprisingly, given the author's other book, Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork). It is, at heart, a biting social commentary as well as a How To.

In short: ADD TO SHOPPING CART! PROCEED TO CHECKOUT! show less

I won this book in the giveaway here on goodreads and at first I didn't know what to expect. How could this woman possibly "get" me? (Yes, I know, I sound like an angsty teen. But then, I'm only twenty.) But it turned out I was wrong.

While I don't agree with everything (especially the little test at the end strikes me as odd - a standardized test in a book that's supposed to celebrate individualism?), some interesting and compelling points were made, many of which I could apply to my own show more surroundings and find them to be true - just today I came across an article on a Gawker blog that was so chock full of snark it made me want to punch the author in the face.

So, all in all - summa summarum, as it were (I don't speak French, but I think Latin can make you look pretty darn smart as well) - this is a very enjoyable and interesting book and, truly, a good read. show less

Well this was a fantastic book!! I won the book in the Library Thing Member Giveaway program and was looking forward to reading it. I have yet to read Steve Harvey's book that this book is written in response to. I will be reading Steve Harvey's book soon. Act like a Gentleman, Think like a Woman was a very entertaining read even though I am a woman. I could see myself in some of the descriptions of the different types of woman she talks about. I know I am not a Patsy, the name she gives to show more the woman that every man wants.

Maria writes that Steve's book is talking about how all women want is to get the ring from the guy. She counters with the fact that all men want is to get laid. I found myself laughing while reading the book, because of the things she revealed about woman and saying how we love to hear how beautiful we are and that it should be all about us. I have to agree and disagree with that. It is great when a guy praises you and flatters you but sometimes it can get very annoying if it is the only thing that they talk about. I realized that when my hubby says things like that, that I do get turned on. It is nice to hear, we sometimes need to be praised to continue to be happy. At least that is what I noticed in myself while reading this book.

I don't know if everything will work in this book for a guy to find that Patsy so that he can get laid. I will say if you find the girl she describes then you should have no problem with getting what you want. show less